The Quantum Connection

And a microsecond later we popped out inside another quantum connected interference region in another cube. Mike projected the funnel-shaped field in front of us and steered us into the small end of the funnel. As we rose up through the funnel the outer diameter of our warp bubble grew. Less than a second ago, I was inside the Phoenix, and now I was standing beside Tatiana who was herself standing inside a dark bubble of spacetime. There was a white-and-blue swirl over the surface of the bubble and with my enhanced eyesight I could see her there naked in front of me. It worked! Traveling through spacetime on the quantum connected Infrastructure worked!

'It's about time, Steven.' She slugged me on the forearm and then jumped into my arms. 'I love you! I love you! I love you! Now get me the hell out of here!'

'I love you, now hold on to me,' I told her.

'Like I would do anything else?' she asked sarcastically.

Mike, reverse the process. 

Okay, Steven. 

We left Mikhail sitting there in the bubble to fend for himself before two thousand years passed or the bubble was destroyed. If we could figure out a way to get him, we would do it—just not now. We popped into the supply room just outside of Michelle's housing and Tatiana immediately had the nanomachines redress her and bring her health to optimal status. She created a bag of cheeseburgers, fries, and a soda and began scarfing them down.

'It worked!' I shouted.

'I toolf eww it fwoul,' Tatiana said with a mouthful.

We need to tell the others. This gives us an amazing advantage. I thought to her as I watched her eat. She was a sight for sore eyes, to say the least.

Okay. Hey, my temple implants still work without Mikhail, she thought to me.

They will function as long as you are within a few hundred thousand kilometers of me, Tatiana, Mike thought to us.

Oh. Neat! She thought in Russian and she continued on to her fourth cheeseburger.

I missed you! 

Me, too, she said. I would have kissed her but there was a likelihood that she would have bitten me by mistake. Besides, there was a cheeseburger in the way.

Tatiana's appearance on the bridge of the Phoenix startled 'Becca at first, but everyone was pleased to see her and pleased that the teleportation of the miniature warp bubble worked. It was the idea of creating a funnel-shaped warp to guide us into the quantum connection zone that was the trick. Anson liked it a whole lot and wanted to discuss the physics of the concept. I told him that it was a trick an old Sequencer taught me. Only Mike, Tatiana, and I got the joke.

Tabitha wanted more information on how we could use the concept tactically and strategically. Her military mind and training served us all very well. So I quickly filled them in on my plan.Then the debate started.

'Wait a minute, though.' Tabitha played with the red curl of hair on her forehead. 'If we can go anywhere else why don't we just do that?'

'I'm not sure that that isn't the best idea. That is why we are talking about it.' I shrugged my shoulders. 'The thing is though, that wherever we went would be in Gray space on a Gray ship and then we would have to take it from them. It can be done.' I smiled at Tatiana.

'Danmn tfootn!' Tatiana said as she forced a handful of fries in her mouth and followed it with a swig from her soda.

Anson chuckled a little. 'Slow down, honey, or you're gonna bite a finger off.'

'Haffen'tf eaten in fweeks!' Tatiana replied as she continued to stuff more fries in her mouth. She didn't actually need to eat. The nanomachines in the stockroom had returned her health, but she really hadn't eaten in weeks.

'If we go now, without taking care of Sunshine out there, we might live to regret it in the future,' Jim said. 'But what do we do exactly? We can't just leave the bomb behind. Opolawn would detect it and stop it. '

'We have to distract him somehow, and then we have to get away from him,' Tabitha thought out loud.

'How about this,' Tatiana said, finally without food in her mouth. She reached in my front pocket and pulled out the golf ball and the controller. She held the golf-ball-sized bomb in her right hand and the controller in her left hand. 'Mike, can you hear me?'

'Yes, Tataiana.'

'Can you make the bomb look just like the controller?' she said.

'Yes, Tatiana. Hand it to Steven,' Mike replied.

Tatiana handed the golf ball back to me. I held the golf ball in my right hand and it got fuzzy around the edges. It changed colors and then formed itself into an exact replica of the controller.

'Will it still go boom, Mike?' I asked.

'Only if you want it to,' he said.

Then Tatiana ran for the door at more than fifty kilometers per hour and she was gone and the picophage controller went with her. It didn't dawn on us that she would be under Opolawn's control if we brought her out of the Gray's confinement bubble and on Opolawn's doorstep. Mikhail was no longer in her belly; the little piece of Gray technology must've somehow been 'vaccinating' her from Opolawn's control. I should've figured that out. Perhaps I should have even waited about freeing Tatiana. That was dumb. I took off after her but she had too big a